Abhisarika Nayika

In this painting, Radha represents an abhisarika, a woman who fearlessly braves the dangers of the night to meet her lover.

Beneath clouds bristling with lightening and in a driving rain, Radha hurries across a rocky landscape, bunching her skirt up to keep it dry, even as snakes coil around her ankles. Four demons, one of whom breathes fire and another who wields a scythe, are in her path. On the painting’s upper left, Krishna, resplendently dressed in a fine muslin jama and gold turban, and with a yoga patta around his legs to help him sit comfortable, awaits Radha’s arrival from within a pavilion with a brilliant red interior.

The saffron-clad yogi in the cave at the upper right, who depicts a comparison within Keshav Das’ verse, embodies Radha’s equanimity in the face of danger.